After reading Wim Hof and James Nestor a couple years ago during the pandemic, I used their techniques in full while battling long Covid.
I had a blood pressure monitor and pulse oximeter on my bedside table that I would experiment with doing these various techniques and seeing my heart rate go down, my blood pressure go down, my anxiety would disappear, lung/chest inflammation would settle, and even oxygen levels increase up to 5%.
I did this primarily because Covid reduced my average running mile time by around 20%. I was hopeful that I could make a full recovery which I did and then some.
This new tool I believe saved my life, and I’m excited to use it for the rest of it.
I got a pulse oximeter a couple years ago too, and it was eye opening (before COVID, and I didn't get COVID).
The realtime feedback is useful and actionable. Breathing more slowly, exhaling more than inhaling (counterintuitive), pausing, and breathing through the nose definitely make a difference for me.
But everyone is a little different so you have to experiment. Breathing is very multidimensional and hard to explain. The Nestor book is a good intro, and I've mentioned it on HN a few times before.
I'm a big believer now. It is almost laughably simple, and I have to cite the fact the fact that no company profits if you breathe better, sleep better, etc. It's a trite saying but true ...
You should get a sleep study as well. It's amazing how little oxygen you can get when you sleep. Cpap sucks to wear at night, but it forces you to take the same breathing techniques. Just avoid philips products and go resmed.
This is why I enjoyed the "tape over mouth" tip by nestor. I was a mouth breather and would not feel very rested because of it. When breathing through nose only, I felt so refreshed as if I got more oxygen.
If your oxygen level is varying significantly while at rest, you are very out of shape aerobically, and you should be getting more exercise, not obsessing about your breathing patterns.
While it's clear exercise is good for everyone, this statement is not well informed.
For example, oxygen saturation monitoring revealed my at-rest breathing reflex is completely broken due to a known genetic flaw. You know the memes about 'your breathing is now under conscious control'? Mine actually is.
That led to a sleep study-- and, yup, I don't breathe when I'm asleep. I wake every two or three minutes, all night, take a few breaths, and go back to sleep. And have all my life. The mystery of why I'm 'such a light sleeper' also revealed.
Doc I saw about it remarked the mutation is probably more widespread then we know because 'no one is looking for it'. It also completely freaked out a few anesthesiologists.
[There are other reflexes around breathing, and no, I can't just hold me breath as long as I want. The physiological reminders to breathe are pretty strong! But I routinely see my SP02 at rest drop below 70.]
Is this true? I run ~15 miles a week, play pickup basketball 2x a week, and lift weights 3x a week. My oxygen levels can vary 2-5% depending on circadian rhythm at rest. When doing these breathing exercises, I can stabilize it at higher levels. That's at least my experience with it.
You say “their technique” and “this new tool”. For someone who hasn’t read Hof and Nestor, could you point to any resources explaining the specific techniques you are referring to? If I go down the Google/YT rabbit hole, I fear I’ll be confronted with hundreds of such techniques and just get utterly confused. Thank you.
Breath: the new science of a lost art, by James Nestor (book; helped me switch fully to nasal breathing, practicing better posture, warm myself when I'm cold, and breathing with my whole torso rather than just belly)
Becoming the Iceman: pushing past perceived limits, by Wim Hof (book, but I've only listened to his breathing exercises for warming the body)
I was curious too. Taken from [0], not my knowledge or opinions. (I'm new to all of this.)
- James Nestor - Breath:
"I love this book and it‘s more a kind of overview about different breathing systems and techniques. He writes about Wim Hof and also about Oxygen Advantage. It‘s a good starting point into the topic of breathing. Highly recommended."
"Breathe is like a pop sci intro to breathing. It covers a lot and not very deeply, but it is engaging, makes a good case, and have a few actionable things that have a larger payoff (mouth tape)."
- Patrick McKeown - Oxygen Advantage:
"The base of this book is the Buteyko method and Patrick follows a very scientific approach. He can explain all hows and whys without beeing to complicated. Also highly recommended. You will find breath holds and reduced breathing in different techniques. Focus is on sports and conditioning. Highly recommended."
"O2 Advantage goes a lot deeper and helps you systematically evaluate and improve your co2 tolerance and thereby improve your body's ability to use oxygen. If I only could recommend one of these three, it would be this one with Breathe as a close second (simply because it is so accessible). It gives clear guidelines, tests, and actionable steps to improve your breathing. It is a very useful book."
- Wim Hof - The Wim Hof Method:
"It’s basically about breathing, cold exposure and the mind. The breathing work is about overbreathing (hyperventilation) followed by a breathhold. There are times that I love it, but science is mostly against it. I guess nobody knows why this works. Pavel is against breath holds after hyperventilation by the way (SECOND WIND). But there are lots of people having success using the WHM. I can also recommend the newest book."
"Wim Hof. It mainly focuses on a intense breathing technique and cold exposure. I know a lot of people that swear by them. I've never had any benefits from them that I could tell. After talking to some people that were really into this, they pointed out that I'm way more stressed all the time than they are. Adding more stress when you are already at max doesn't exactly help and probably hurts (more info here). This is my least favorite of the three as it has a very narrow benefit and that benefit isn't applicable to a lot of people. since it is basically a book on how to increase stress levels through breathing and cold."
Thanks for this. My pensioner mother came back from the doctors yesterday with a chest infection, on top of this she has mild bronchitis. I've just sent her this exercises as I'm hoping it might improve her lung health. Although i did send her this one which is a bit easier: https://youtu.be/0BNejY1e9ik
But thanks for posting it, I never knew about this method. Just tried it myself and it rocks.
Wow, I can't thank you enough for posting this.
I've been struggling with hypertension and anxiety for a very long time. I just tried the beginner exercise and couldn't believe the effect.
Not only could I hold my breath for longer then I was ever able to on my first try but also I felt relaxed and happy at the end of the exercise.
Wim Hof is really good, the calmness you feel after the breathing is unmatched.
There all these small techniques for managing emotions that are just not well known. If you need to calm down in the moment for example, doing a simple inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 2, exhale for 8 can make your stress melt away. Or in really stressful situations, try grabbing an icepack and holding it for a minute.
The article is about IMST, which is strictly about muscle strengthening. This is maybe a side effect of the Wim Hoff Method, but the WHM also has other purposes because the main mechanism is hyper ventilation and breath holding. Here is good medical explanation of what happens when practicing the WMH (by a medical professional): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6EPuUdIC1E (summary at 33:46).
Yes sorry. I used the wrong word. It had a negative effect on my running time up to 20%. In my case it added two minutes to my 10 minute mile average. It took me awhile to get back to normal.
By "tape your mouth", James Nestor suggests taping the mouth shut while sleeping, to condition the nose (extra benefit of not drying out the gums--my dentist approves). It took months of applying a thin strip of tape vertically across my lips (surgical tape, easy to pull off if needed, but it never came to that), and now I habitually breathe through my nose at night instead of my mouth, and can nose-breathe all day, too, where before I'd need some mouth-breaths in a panic.
The switching-nostils breathing is just one way to practice (there's a list at the back of the book). If anything, best practice for oxygenation and venting C02 seems to be inhaling over 5-6 seconds and exhaling for the same or slightly longer. The more-recent book Breath Taking by Michael Stephen backs this up.
The only beef i have with Wim Hof is he says one's attitude matter in following his method. He says a person should be open minded and accept without ego, something along those lines. The problem is its not quantifiable and kind of cop-out, so I don't take it too seriously.
Well, maybe. As in: sure, a lot of breathing techniques and sometimes even useful natural remedies are some of the oldest recorded ones if they are coming from "the east", but in the end that corpus of wisdom is mostly a spaghetti mess of helpful and harmful techniques that is really hard to disentangle from cultism, oogie-boogie and autocratic belief systems.
There's no shortage of stupidity in eastern "wisdom":
I for one prefer the clean extraction (or parallel invention/construction, whatever your take on that is) of single techniques based on double-blind evidence instead of being told that I can't just do breathing exercises properly without also listening to the incoherent ramblings of a random guru:
Yep, the Wim Hof method was original research too, but that guy basically just said: I tried some things, these seem to work, here's the proof, take it or leave it. Goes on to break some records and just STFU's otherwise.
You cite an NYT article "How Yoga Can Wreck Your Body". That is like citing an article "How You Can Hurt Yourself With A Kitchen Knife" to argue how the culinary arts are dangerous gobbledygook.
Yes, these practices can hurt you if you don't do them properly.
And there is nothing wrong with performing or following original research, as long as you credit the work upon which you build.
It's not difficult to find traditional eastern wisdom that have no known health benefits and can have adverse effects. Just look at Gua Sha for example. Not everything is good in TCM, a lot of it is not well tested following theories that are demonstrably false.
Does it mean that there's nothing of interest? No. There are some remedies based on Traditional Chinese Medecine that have proven to be beneficial. After all, this is how Artemisinin which is used as a cure for Malaria was discovered from a traditional herbal remedy from the 4th century. But, this is after trying multiple traditional remedies. Don't underestimate the value of curation when finding a working remedy from the multitude of non-working traditional cures.
Downvoters.. reflect on all the quackery in Western medicine for a moment. Writing so many paragraphs about all of the "stupidity in eastern wisdom" without recognizing you can make all of the same statements about Western traditions. Even in modern institutions.
So unnecessary just to say you like verifiable/repeatable studies.
Just realized, even funnier is that the studies cited on the Wim Hof site are not blinded studies at all, let alone double blind, despite the claims in that tirade.
This has happened with Pranayama before, when it was appropriated and rebranded as 'cardiac coherence breathing' [1] and 'diaphragmatic breathing' [2].
I practice yoga and pranayama but I think for many people decoupling the breathing exercises from the spiritual side encourages them to try things they would have otherwise have shunned. I also think many of the secular breathwork practitioners aren't being deceptive - many of them are very open about their influences - Wim Hof had certainly talked about his time in India etc. What is interesting for me is understanding more of the science so we can figure out which parts of these practices matter for what and whether some parts are extraneous.
It doesn't matter one iota if someone claims it as their own, what matters is the benefit it brings. Do you think Patanjali (or whomever) would be protective of their techniques and trademark it, patent it, and extract wealth for it?
If they don't care then neither should anyone else, and perhaps this will help the techniques spread further, which I'm sure Patanjali et al again, would not be against.
If Jeff Bezos says he has invented a new operating system and upon a little digging it is discovered that he just tweaked and renamed Linux, then he should and will be called out, and it will hurt his reputation.
The problem is not with using knowledge to your benefit, that is why it is there. The problem is with plagiarism, misrepresentation and intellectual dishonesty.
Linux has a licence and relies on copyright law. If yogic breathing techniques did have a licence, the best you could hope for would be an MIT/BSD licence. I don't see how that advances your view.
Even if Linux were not subject to a license, a person claiming to have invented an operating system who in reality simply forked Linux without giving appropriate credit would be considered a plagiarist.
And to expect a sagacious progenitor of a millennia-old practice like Pranayama to have considered modern-day legal protections is absurd.
> And to expect a sagacious progenitor of a millennia-old practice like Pranayama to have considered modern-day legal protections is absurd.
Yes, reductio ad absurdum was the point.
> Even if Linux were not subject to a license, a person claiming to have invented an operating system who in reality simply forked Linux without giving appropriate credit would be considered a plagiarist.
To consider "modern-day legal protections is absurd" but forking an operating system is what? I'd go for special pleading.
But to the point. Plagiarism is important in academic circles, it is not for breathing techniques, whether given by yogis or not. *Please show me why Patanjali would care, if he would not then why should anyone else?*
No, plagiarism is important in every circle, not just academic circles.
If you copy your colleague's work at your FAANG job and claim it as your own, you will be in trouble.
If a contemporary politician claims he has come up with this novel idea where decisions can be made with "majority vote", he will be mocked out of the room.
> No, plagiarism is important in every circle, not just academic circles.
Please show me how it would be important to Patanjali, or even how it will reduce the good the techniques bring, how it will negatively impacted yoga teachers, or something other than FAANG jobs, politicians and academia that simply aren't relevant to this discussion.
I'm not sure why you keep focusing on Patanjali, who I'll concede is beyond caring about this. But the people from his culture and civilization who ARE alive today do not want to see his works (some who consider it sacred) associated with "beer" or "goats" or commercialized without proper credit and respect, and it is important to them. I'm not sure why that reason is not good enough for you? Are you the kind of person who goes trespassing in sacred native lands in Hawaii or anywhere else, because after all the elders are all dead?
I’m not the kind of person who engages in cheap ad hominem with someone they’re in discussion with, that’s what I do know.
> I'm not sure why you keep focusing on PatanjalI
He’s the one whose techniques are (allegedly) being plagiarised, it’s abundantly clear to anyone who’s not busy trying to avoid the central point and instead engaging in ad hominem.
> But the people from his culture and civilization who ARE alive today do not want to see his works (some who consider it sacred) associated with "beer" or "goats" or commercialized without proper credit and respect, and it is important to them
Why do they care more than Patanjali? Why does being Indian matter when yoga is implicitly non-national? Nationalism, a disease which India currently appears riddled with, is a specious line of reasoning. Does the average Indian get more claim over yogic techniques than those of other nationalities who actually practice them? Ridiculous. They’re an idea anyway, even if they were “invented” today they couldn’t be copyrighted.
This whole line of argument is absurd, and I might be in a better mood to entertain them if you cut out the ad hominem, but I doubt it.
> Does the average Indian get more claim over yogic techniques than those of other nationalities who actually practice them?
I believe so yes. Not sure what you mean by “actually” practice but I assure you many many people in india practice it.
> He’s the one whose techniques are (allegedly) being plagiarised, it’s abundantly clear to anyone who’s not busy trying to avoid the central point and instead engaging in ad hominem.
I don’t think I ever mentioned plagiarism, you probably have me confused with someone else.
> Why do they care more than Patanjali? Why does being Indian matter when yoga is implicitly non-national? Nationalism, a disease which India currently appears riddled with, is a specious line of reasoning.
The fact that you’re even asking this question tells me more about your unchecked privilege than anything else. And re nationalism: no thanks we don’t need outsiders telling us what we should be thinking, we had 2 centuries of that, don’t care for it much.
> This whole line of argument is absurd, and I might be in a better mood to entertain them if you cut out the ad hominem, but I doubt it.
This will be my last response since I'm finding it increasingly hard to believe you're arguing in good faith.
> Should I wait for some reasoning to back that up or do I have to ask? If I ask will I get an answer?
The Yogic practices originated in the Indian subcontinent, so yes the people who identify themselves with the same civilization and culture as the person(s) who originated these practices do have a larger claim as to how these practices are presented, taught and understood. It would seem that your claim that such a notion is "ridiculous" is on much more shakier ground than mine. I don't see you presenting any reasoning as to why you believe this is "ridiculous". You certainly feel so, but there's nothing special or important about your feelings on the matter.
> People who practice it versus people who don't, like the average Indian.
Not sure what relevance this has to the matter, but ok thanks for the clarification.
> Many people who are not Indian practise yoga - why does the average Indian have more claim to it than these people? Would Patanjali think they do?
See above.
> Again, no answer, just ad hominem.
No ad hominem, just an observation. I keep saying that there are people who sometimes dislike the co-opting and whitewashing/rebranding of Yoga (see the linked article). You keep insisting that it's not a problem and that I should just not care. It's again hard to attribute good intent here. BTW on the topic of ad hominem, you're the one who seemed close to accusing me of rabid "nationalism", perhaps not those exact words but you and I both know exactly what you mean.
> Why do they care more than Patanjali?
Why not?
> Poe's Law comes to mind.
Randomly throwing the names of rhetorical devices or "laws" in a conversation does not make your argument any stronger FYI.
> The Yogic practices originated in the Indian subcontinent, so yes the people who identify themselves with the same civilization and culture as the person(s) who originated these practices do have a larger claim as to how these practices are presented, taught and understood.
Why did Patanjali not mention that Indians have more claim over his techniques than humanity? Why do those who, on average, do not engage with his ideas think they have more claim on them? Are you going to claim there is an innate link between ideas, ancestry and where one is born? Ridiculous.
> I don't see you presenting any reasoning as to why you believe this is "ridiculous"
Because I assumed that relating the ownership of an idea to its geography when it is explicitly taught to be applied to any human, and moreover, that ownership to those who were born later on the same land but probably aren't using the idea, to be obviously ridiculous but I didn't take into account that you'd be a nationalist.
> See above.
You didn't answer above.
> No ad hominem, just an observation.
Ad hominem is a fallacy of relevance where the one committing the fallacy avoids addressing the substantial point with observations about their opponent in the debate.
> You keep insisting that it's not a problem and that I should just not care. It's again hard to attribute good intent here.
Again, ad hominem. What is the bad intent? What would be bad faith? You're yet to provide a reason why this plagiarism - that you didn't bring up but waded in to - is a problem other than someone taking offence over something that isn't theirs and that they probably don't do.
> > Why do they care more than Patanjali?
> Why not?
See above.
> > Poe's Law comes to mind.
> Randomly throwing the names of rhetorical devices or "laws" in a conversation does not make your argument any stronger FYI.
It wasn't part of my argument, it was an observation, though not ad hominem as I didn't avoid the point.
It matters because the adopter may highlight only 3 out of 20 exercises and if you did not know the original source, you may never learn about the other 17. Not that you may need the others, but maybe if you were aware, you could explore further and use the variations that are already well known to slice and dice when one kind of breathing may make sense as compared to the other.
Someone posted this link, so I am just repeating it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdCmB8Tnvmw. This is an hour long video focusing on different kinds of breathing as part of yoga. Do look at the top comment (as of now) as it provides time-links to 12 different kinds of breathing - bhastrika, kapal bhati, bahya pranayama, agnisaar kriya, anuloma viloma, bhramari, udgeeth, ujjai, shitali, sikkari.
If someone develops 3 of the practices on their own, sure, they can describe only what they know.
But if they sourced (and productized) 3 of them from a known source, they should refer to the main source, no? Kinda like open source - use but credit.
If I learn 3 exercises lifted from a course of 20 and start doing them, say dead lifts, pull ups and bent over rows, then because the Youtube channel I learnt them off doesn't mention the other course I'm not going to find out about it?
Even if we were to wind that back to an earlier time period without all the benefits that search algorithms and the like bring, how would one who benefits from these techniques have such low interest that they'd never bother to find out anything more? I don't buy it.
> Kinda like open source - use but credit.
I'm all for giving credit. What I don't see is how that negatively impacts anyone in this situation - is Patanjali looking for credit? Does he need credit? Have they brought any of his techniques to more people?
All of these questions are yet to be answered with anything approaching a negative impact.
no, it does matter. Because once someone has appropriated it, they can block access to the original material.
Theft of the commons is one of the enduring themes of capitalism.
Could be soft-blocks, i.e. burying links to the original source so no-one finds it, reducing the number of teachers or the ability of those teachers to make a living, etc.
Could be harder blocks; say the new company patents it. Files takedown notices against alternative presentations. Yes, you could fight them on "prior art", but now you have a legal fight as well as the difficulties of promoting the technique.
And while I'll take your word for it that Patanjali et al don't mind one group spreading their techniques farther, are we so sure that Patanjali et al would feel about that one group claiming ownership and only allowing that group to access it? Perhaps Patanjali didn't try to trademark/patent (or the equivalent) their techniques because they were morally opposed to this?
That's a slippery slope argument, which may not be fallacious, not all are.
If we accept that Hof and Nestor have "appropriated" these techniques then the next question would be how has that led to the blocks you've outlined? When will I lose access to the authentic teachings?
> are we so sure that Patanjali et al would feel about that one group claiming ownership and only allowing that group to access it?
I reckon he'd be against it as Patanjali et al seem more focused on sharing the knowledge in order to benefit others but who's to know.
> Perhaps Patanjali didn't try to trademark/patent (or the equivalent) their techniques because they were morally opposed to this?
I think this point has been covered but I'll add that I've not noticed any form of communism in the system of yoga Patanjali systematised.
> Cultural appropriation refers to the use of objects or elements of a non-dominant culture in a way that reinforces stereotypes or contributes to oppression and doesn't respect their original meaning or give credit to their source. It also includes the unauthorized use of parts of their culture (their dress, dance, etc.) without permission.
I await Patanjali to serve papers that use of his intellectual property isn't allowed, apparently because it reinforces stereotypes or contributes to oppression.
Maybe we'll hear about the Buddha's thoughts on copyright next and how derivative works are unauthorized.
It's not really cultural appropriation. It's simply false appropriation. Claiming another's works as your own fancy innovation. Claiming another's achievement as yours with no original attribution.
I wasn't aware that either Hof or Nestor were academics so I'm not sure how it's relevant.
As to the accusation that they've stolen an idea, someone should outline their accusation explicitly and then, far more importantly, explain why I should care. As I've pointed out, Patanjali wouldn't (or you can point out why he would, that would be interesting).
> I wasn't aware that either Hof or Nestor were academics so I'm not sure how it's relevant.
Classic Strawman Argument. Sad to see this on HN. I never claimed they were academics. Just that doing this in academics would get you banned.
They are journalists. The century-old Society for Professional Journalists has a simple statement on plagiarism in its Code of Ethics: “Never plagiarize. Always attribute.”
The outline has already been made clear by several posters in this thread.
“doesn't respect their original meaning or give credit to their source.”
See I can pick parts of a random definition off google the same way you do.
Have you heard of “beer yoga”? Or “goat yoga”? It’s the very definition of disrespectful of the original meaning etc. I’m guessing not, but feel free to be entitled to your opinion, it’s a free country after all
> See I can pick parts of a random definition off google the same way you do.
I shared the whole definition I found from the first result returned to me[1], and I didn't use Google. If you have a better definition then I would suggest that a better response would've been to share it instead of falsely accusing others of mistakes only you have made.
Uh ok, Bing/DDG whatever, that's an odd thing to nitpick. I'm not sure who is accusing whom of what, I just pointed out that the definition YOU found from wherever, has the exact phrase I alluded to above. The phrase I quoted specifically says why this could be seen as cultural appropriation, but you seem to be intent on arguing semantics of words and nitpicking so I'm not really sure what your goal is here.
> Bing/DDG whatever, that's an odd thing to nitpick
Actually, it serves as an easy way to display how little your claim resembles reality, because it underlines how zero of what you wrote is correct.
> I'm not sure who is accusing whom of what
Have you considered reading the thread you’re commenting in and not wasting the time of others?
> I'm not really sure what your goal is here.
If you want to claim that it’s cultural appropriation then the definition matters. If the definition doesn’t matter then neither does the claim, and it would serve only as one more meaningless pejorative in the service of ad hominem that does nothing to advance the conversation. Which, as far as I can tell, is the whole purpose of “cultural appropriation” as a concept.
> Anyhow it is typical of westerners to co-opt open source eastern techniques to commercialise and pass as their invention. Same as Amazon taking open source and turning it into yet another AWS service.
> Greed & ego - pure and simple.
Perhaps, but consider: in a sibling comment, codenlearn posted a link to Wim Hof's video, I watched it, and did ten minutes of breathing exercise. He shared some knowledge (open source spirit), it was free (no commercialization), and I would not even remember his username if I hadn't copied it for the sake of this comment (no ego).
I learned more from his comment than I did from yours. You could have shared a better guide, some resource to learn about the original practices, but you didn't. Instead your comment focused exclusively on your offense at the lack of recognition for you(r in-group). What is that if not ego? Group narcissism is still narcissism.
I've seen comparisons to traditional breathing practices like tummo and pranayama, but never any real proof of a connection. In fact from what I can see they differ a bit even if they get similar end results.
Tummo is closer to 'Kundalini' [1] than it is to Pranayama. Pranayama can be practiced safely with a little intro, but the others I believe require serious guidance.
I had a blood pressure monitor and pulse oximeter on my bedside table that I would experiment with doing these various techniques and seeing my heart rate go down, my blood pressure go down, my anxiety would disappear, lung/chest inflammation would settle, and even oxygen levels increase up to 5%.
I did this primarily because Covid reduced my average running mile time by around 20%. I was hopeful that I could make a full recovery which I did and then some.
This new tool I believe saved my life, and I’m excited to use it for the rest of it.